He turned his head slightly and his jaw dropped. Set at intervals no more than a yard or two apart were the portals he was expecting. But there were more of them than he could have imagined in a nightmare. There were portals by the score, by the hundred, by the thousand and more. They stretched like sentries along the base of the cliff as far as the eye could see. There was no way so many portals could have been constructed in the time since the standard portals had closed down. Beleth must have been secretly building these gateways for years.
There were no visible guards. But perhaps Beleth felt none were needed. Destroying so many portals would need an army of men and even then would certainly take days, maybe weeks. Besides, his secret had been safe for so long he probably thought the work would never be discovered. No one ventured this far into the deep desert: even the Trinian nomads avoided it as much as possible. It was the perfect base for a demon invasion.
Pyrgus allowed his eyes to travel desolately along the line of portals. ‘So much for sabotage!’ he muttered between clenched teeth. Even if they managed to close down one or two, thousands would remain. The effect on Beleth’s war effort would be a gnat’s bite.
‘Wouldn’t be so sure,’ remarked Nymphalis, stretched out on the ground beside him. She turned to Woodfordi, who was lying beside her. ‘What do you think?’
‘Distance apart you mean, Miss?’ Woodfordi asked.
Nymph nodded silently.
‘Tricky to say from here,’ Woodfordi frowned. ‘But they could have been set too close together…’
‘What are you talking about?’ Pyrgus asked.
‘Chain reaction,’ Nymph told him. ‘Portal technology is inherently unstable. Basically you’re creating a hole in reality, so it has to be. Inside any given portal the instability is under control, but it’s still there. You see what that means?’
‘No,’ Pyrgus admitted. He hated it when Nymph lectured him.
‘If we were to sabotage one portal – blow it up, that is – we would trigger the portal’s own instability,’ Nymph said. ‘So our sabotage explosion causes the portal itself to explode; and that’s a much larger explosion. But if there’s another portal nearby, another portal that’s close enough, the explosion in the first portal will cause that one to explode as well.’ She glanced towards the row of portals underneath the cliff. ‘If those are close enough together, we only have to blow one up for the whole lot to go off like firecrackers, one after the other.’
Pyrgus was staring at her in astonishment. ‘How do you know all this technical stuff?’ he asked. ‘Forest Faeries don’t even use portals.’
Nymph just smiled at him.
Pyrgus said, ‘Pity we don’t have anything to blow up the first portal.’ When he’d suggested sabotage he’d been thinking of blocking them up with rocks, an old guerrilla trick that would have left transported demons locked inside the stones.
‘Think we might have, sir,’ Woodfordi said. He rummaged in his kit and brought out a length of painted willow about nine inches long.
‘What’s that?’ Pyrgus asked.
‘Exploding wand, sir. You snap it in half to distress the spell coating, then leave the pieces beside the thing you want to blow up. You’ve got eight seconds to get out of range.’
‘I thought CCs were non-combatants,’ Pyrgus said.
Woodfordi smiled. ‘Still issue you with the kit and give you the basic training,’ he said. ‘Just in case.’
Nymph, who was looking at Woodfordi, said, ‘What’s the problem?’
Pyrgus glanced at her in surprise. ‘Why should there be a problem?’
Woodfordi said, ‘Thing is, Miss, eight seconds is plenty of time to get out of range of the wand explosion. But if the wand triggers the portal, that’s a much bigger explosion. Much bigger…’
‘So whoever blows up the first portal might not get away in time? Might be caught by the larger explosion?’
‘Might be killed, Miss, yes,’ Woodfordi nodded soberly.
‘I’ll do it,’ Pyrgus told them promptly.
‘No you won’t,’ said Nymph at once.
‘I’m the soldier,’ Woodfordi said. ‘Has to be my job.’
‘You’re our Communications Channel,’ Pyrgus told him fiercely. ‘We need you to get word back to the palace.’
‘Can’t get word back from here,’ Woodfordi pointed out. ‘Orion isn’t answering.’
‘That’s only because we’re in the deep desert. We can use you later.’
‘I’ll do it,’ Nymph said. ‘I can run faster than either of you.’
‘No you can’t!’ Pyrgus bristled.
‘Oh yes I can,’ Nymph told him confidently. ‘Besides, I know what a portal explosion is like and I think I can be out of range within eight seconds.’
‘How do you know what a portal explosion is like?’
Annoyingly, Nymph only smiled at him again.
The argument went on until Nagel crept up beside them and suggested, ‘Ace or aht.’
Pyrgus blinked. ‘Race for it?’ He’d understood Nagel this time and it sounded like a good idea. He didn’t think he’d have any problem beating a girl and Woodfordi had only little short legs.
‘From here to that rock,’ Nagel said, pointing. ‘I’ll count you down from three.’
They raced and Nymph won easily. ‘You can help me set the wand,’ she told them reassuringly (and without the good grace to breathe heavily). ‘I’ll let you get clear before I set it off.’
‘We need to be sure the portals are close enough together for any of this to work,’ Pyrgus said a little sulkily.
Nymph beamed at him. ‘Then let us go and inspect them properly,’ she said. ‘Coming, Nagel?’
The Trinian shook his head. ‘If you’re going to blow things up, I have to get my people out of the area. They hate explosions.’ He moved away to disappear between some rocks.
‘I’ll come with you,’ Woodfordi said. ‘I’ve got a measure and I know the distance we need.’
The three of them were on their way to the nearest portal when a group of rocks transformed themselves into a Goblin Guard.
Ninety-one
Henry’s face was on fire. ‘I did what?’ he exclaimed.
‘That’s not the worst of it,’ said Fogarty. His face was unsmiling as ever, but there was a glint in his eye that might have meant he was enjoying this.
‘What’s the worst of it?’ Henry asked with trepidation.
‘You tried to get her to mate with you,’ Fogarty said.
There was a war on and the world was falling apart around them, but since there was nothing they could do about it, Fogarty and Henry had gone to Fogarty’s lodge where they were drinking Analogue tea from a dwindling supply while Fogarty brought Henry up to speed on what had happened to him.
Henry was not enjoying the experience.
He stared at Mr Fogarty, his mouth opening and closing like a fish. Eventually he squeaked, ‘ Mate? ’
‘What don’t you understand?’ Fogarty asked. ‘Your parents forgot the talk about the birds and bees?’
Henry’s hand had begun to shake so he set down his mug. ‘I couldn’t have,’ he said.
‘You could according to Blue. And you did. I don’t know what you’re making such a fuss about – I thought you fancied her.’
‘I did – I do! But -’ He picked up his mug and set it down again immediately. ‘I respect her!’ he blurted out.
Maybe it was his tone, but Mr Fogarty’s face softened. ‘Look, Henry, you can’t take this stuff personally. Beleth had you fixed. You didn’t know what you were doing. From what Blue says, the implant turned you into a demon.’
After a minute, Henry said, ‘Like… with horns?’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Henry!’ Mr Fogarty exclaimed impatiently.
When Mr Fogarty was appointed Gatekeeper of the Empire, his official residence became the Gate Lodge of the Purple Palace, an imposing structure by any criterion. But since he’d moved permanently into the Realm, he’d gradually turned it into as much of a tip as the little house Henry was looking after. The room they were in at the moment was almost a replica of his original back kitchen, complete with rusting old tin biscuit boxes and half-finished bits of electrical machinery.